Thursday, January 15, 2015

The coffee shop with art space finally opened and my friend, Bobbie, and I stopped in for lunch yesterday. The shop is in Scott's Addition, in one of those trendy industrial buildings with huge glass windows on all sides - no walls to hang quilts on. So, we improvised and hung them on the staircase. One has sold (yea!) *and* the marketing manager asked me to hang them next month in their Church Hill shop (more yea!).

Sunday, January 4, 2015

My daughter was telling me about her mending last week. New Year's seems a good time to mend. Mending is a lost art. Most people don't have the skills, the patience or the supplies to face mending garments. She had asked me a technical question about basic sewing. You Tube to the rescue! I didn't have to try to explain it over the phone. Successful mending session.

I've been reading about this book - The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Her approach to possessions is to love and care for them. Since one only has enough time to do that with a few possessions, it's also a book about minimalism and reducing clutter. Her focus on clothing is to have a few of the best clothes you can afford and treat them lovingly. Store them lovingly. Mend them.

So, I've been playing in my closet. I've always loved clothes anyway. Playing in the closet is great fun. These are two of the things I've played with.

I found a beautiful J. Jill sweater dress at the local consignment shop last week. It has a scoop neckline, something that always slips on me and exposes - bra straps - yuck. My great-grandmother, Edna, taught me how to make these tiny straps on the shoulder seam of a sweater or shirt that keeps that ugly strap in it's place. Takes 5 minutes to install with some seam tape and two snaps.

This is an Ann Taylor LOFT sweater (also a consignment find last year) that has one of those trendy back zippers. I was also tidying up my jewelry collection and found these earrings that I made about 15 years ago on a bead shop expedition. I wasn't going to wear them again, so I installed one on the zipper pull. It comes off instantly to wash the sweater, but adds a bit of bling.